29th July 2011: European Shakuhachi Society Summer School, SOAS London

Shakuhachi as a Noise and Technology InterfaceThis seminar attempts to locate the Japanese shakuhachi flute as an optimal live performance interface with new technological resources, particularly at the noisier end of the spectrum. Metaphorical and practical connections can be drawn between the performance tradition, methodology of playing and acoustic vocabulary of the instrument and a number of new sonic resources. Using these connections as an analytical basis, I plan to identify a possible performance practice and compositional language and illustrate this with examples from my own recent work.

The Computer, the Shakuhachi, the Pen: An artist’s tools
(To read a transcript of this lecture click here)more info

15th May 2006: Dartington College of Arts, Devon

The Third Viennese SchoolExamining parallels between the works of the two Austrian composers Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919 – 1994) and Anestis Logothetis (1921 – 1994), one becomes aware of a common ground – an intense investigative aesthetic dealing with issues of writing and identity in the composed musical work.

The Death of Writing Before MusicCan composition be about more than the transmission of a ‘sonic idea’ from the composer’s mind, via transparent performers, to the listeners’ ears?
Examining both some of the earliest incursions of writing into music, at the Abbey of St. Gall in the ninth century, and some of the scores in the twentieth century art tradition which push the concept of a score to its limits in the light of this question provides a new vantage point from which notation can be seen as a part, rather than the source, of a living musical tradition – the western tradition of musical ‘works’.